INSTRUMENTS USED IN HORTICULTURE. 91 



large rough-handled instrument, with a hooked blade, for cut- 

 ting and trimming cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, and other large 

 succulent vegetables, when gathered for the kitchen; the pruning - 

 knife, fig. 40, a, for cutting the branches and twigs -pig. 40. 



off trees and shrubs, forming cuttings, &c. ; the 

 budding- knife, b, and the grafting-knife, c, used in per- 

 forming the operations of budding and grafting, and 

 also in making smaller cuttings. Where heaths and 6 

 other small-leaved plants are propagated by cuttings Garden-knives. 

 of the points of the shoots, a common penknife is requisite, as well as 

 a pair of small scissors for clipping off the leaves ; but these instru- 

 ments are so familiar to every one that it is unnecessary to describe 

 them. Formerly garden-knives were distinguished from those in com- 

 mon use by having blades hooked at the points, for more conveniently 

 hooking or tearing off shoots or leaves ; but this mode of separating 

 shoots or branches being found to crush that part of the shoot which was 

 left on the living plant, and by that means render it liable to be injured 

 by drought or by the absorption of water, a clean draw-cut has been re- 

 sorted to as not liable to these objections; and this requires a blade with 

 a straight edge like those of the prun ing-knives now in general use. 

 There are folding pruning-knifes combining in the same handle a saw, 

 a chisel, a file, a screw-driver, &c., but these are for the most part more 

 curious than useful. The asparagus-knife, -p. 



fig. 41, has a blade about eighteen inches 

 long, hooked and serrated, and is used for 

 cutting the young shoots of asparagus when 

 in a fit state for the table. It is thrust into Asparagus 



the soil so as, when drawing it out, to cut the shoot from two to five 

 inches under the surface, according to the looseness of the soil, and the 

 taste of the consumer for asparagus more or less coloured at the 

 points. Where green asparagus is preferred to what is thoroughly 

 blanched, such a knife is hardly requisite, as the buds may be cut off 

 at the surface with a common cabbage-knife. The asparagus-knife 

 is less used now than formerly, as it was found to destroy many of the 

 young shoots below the surface. A common knife or one shaped 

 like a small chisel is a much safer, as well as a handier tool. 



Ivory-handled budding-knives are now much used by gardeners for 

 many kinds of light work as well as for budding. On the Continent, 

 where the training of trees is so well understood, the use of the knife 

 is not at all common with cultivators. It has been given up in 

 favour of the secateurs, described further on. Bill-knives or 

 hedge-bills are large blades fixed to the ends of long handles for 

 cutting off branches from young trees, and for cutting up the 

 sides of hedges instead of shears. The advantage in using them 

 in preference to shears is, that they have a clean smooth section 

 instead of a rough one, which, as already observed, admits drought 

 and moisture, and also stimulates the extremities of the branches to 

 throw out numerous small shoots, and these, by thickening the surface 

 of the hedge, exclude the air from the interior, in which, ultimately, 



